A whole Gothic world had come to grief...there was now no armor glittering through the forest glades, no embroidered feet on the green sward; the cream and dappled unicorns had fled...

— Evelyn Waugh

Change is the only evidence of life.

— Evelyn Waugh

Civilization – and by this I do not mean talking cinemas and tinned food, nor even surgery and hygienic houses, but the whole moral and artistic organization of Europe – has not in itself the power of survival. It came into being through Christianity, and without it has no significance or power to command allegiance… That is the first discovery, that Christianity is essential to civilization and that it is in greater need of combative strength than it has been for centuries.

— Evelyn Waugh

Conversation should be like juggling; up go the balls and plates, up and over, in and out, good solid objects that glitter in the footlights and fall with a bang if you miss them.

— Evelyn Waugh

Do you want to change?" "It's the only evidence of life.

— Evelyn Waugh

Every Englishman abroad, until it is proved to the contrary, likes to consider himself a traveler and not a tourist.

— Evelyn Waugh

...for in that city [New York] there is neurosis in the air which the inhabitants mistake for energy.

— Evelyn Waugh

He lay back for a little in his bed thinking about the smells of food… of the intoxicating breath of bakeries and dullness of buns… He planned dinners, of enchanting aromatic foods… endless dinners, in which one could alternate flavor with flavor from sunset to dawn without satiety, while one breathed great drafts of the bouquet of brandy.

— Evelyn Waugh

Her heart was broken perhaps, but it was a small inexpensive organ of local manufacture. In a wider and grander way she felt things had been simplified.

— Evelyn Waugh

He was fortified by a memory which kept only the good things and rejected the ill. Despite his sorrows, he had had a fair share of joys and these were ever fresh and accessible.

— Evelyn Waugh